I have been very vocal on that matter, but I don't see the relevance of FreeBSD on the desktop anymore. Alas I'm not even able to persuade my wife or sister anymore. There is the lack of Flash, the so-so Wine port (there are some applications which don't run in FreeBSD wine as supposed), problems with some default devices (like mice, keyboards) and so on. It's my desktop, it's the desktop for many people who can cope with it, but it's far from the desktop for the 'masses'. But there is Linux and it fills the gap. It's maybe not the best, but at least it's open source like FreeBSD :-)

Sorry for the late replay but I just noticed your message. I noticed that DesktopBSD is dead which I expected after Peter graduated. However Desktop-tools might be an interesting legacy if it becomes the part of the FreeBSD base like NanoBSD.

only first four are really, really interesting. Rescue tools provided by LiveCD Frenzy should be provide by FreeBSD project itself. The same goes for LiveCD of the FreeSBIE type which is more appropriate for hardware testing. I am not sure what is the state freesbie port (I mean tools for creating LiveCD) but I would imagine that is not very off production level.

PCBSD will die like DesktopBSD due to the stubborn refusal by PCBSD developers to admit that PBIs are BIG mistake and creating the viable GUI for packages and ports. The focus of PCBSD should have been work on desktop
features of the FreeBSD like porting proprietary drivers for printing and scanning (sane-backends are half functional on FreeBSD, HLIP is in sad state)
as well as adding the WI driver (it is enough to port OpenBSD drivers) as well
as USB camera drivers (porting uvideo driver from OpenBSD comes to mind).

I thought I would never say this but OpenBSD has much more to offer to competent Unix user on a desktop than FreeBSD.

More network, audio drivers plus uvideo driver. WPA works. DRM enabled.
Ekiga actually works with video and PJSUA just rocks.
From November Java will be just regular binary package.
Gnash is almost ready for the production. The Wine release is almost ported which will
enable people to use Oliver Harold's trick and use Flash in the Window's browser. OpenOffice is just a regular binary package unlike FreeBSD where is a pain to compile. The GUI tool for managing ports and packages is available as a package. TeXLive is actually ported and stale ports are constantly cut from the ports three unlike FreeBSD containing thousands of legacy ports.
Qemu works. If we add much more user friendliness of OpenBSD which doesn't require kernel compilation for things like HPLIP or loading modules even for audio and WiFi the choice should be clear.

OpenBSD has far better installer than FreeBSD and installing dozen of similar systems is just a snap using siteXX.tgz.

It seems that relevant FreeBSD based desktop distro remains an illusive goal as Linux monopoly over the Windows on the desktop.

-working SMP in terms of speed, not just 'look we have got a dualcore'
-WPA (okay they're at last working on it for 4.4)
-a ports tree which is actually 'really usable' (the best you can get is in current)
-some proper 3D support (okay not their fault)
-some minor annoyances

-working SMP in terms of speed, not just 'look we have got a dualcore'
-WPA (okay they're at last working on it for 4.4)
-a ports tree which is actually 'really usable' (the best you can get is in current)
-some proper 3D support (okay not their fault)
-some minor annoyances

Serious SMP on the desktop? Please. OpenBSD supports SMP on i386, AMD 64, sparc64, ppc, apple ppc and motorolla 68. And I am not talking Core 2 Duo. I am talking multiple CPUs. That is far wider SMP support than FreeBSD which doesn't have single core support for wide class of SUN's CPUs. WPA is in current. I am using it on the daily base. DRM in enabled in current.

On the another hand FreeBSD is SMP optimized for i386 and AMD and nothing can bit its scalability on motherboards which have up to 16 CPUs. It has ZFS, ULE and it will have DTrace shortly. Nobody claims that FreeBSD is dead for File Servers and Databases. It is alive and better than ever You have to agree on that one with me. It should be a logical choice for file and database server use over Linux on any non-proprietary hardware.

Speaking of the OpenBSD ports three I am amazed that so few people can do even that much. OpenBSD team has 100 people and maybe that much more who are playing with ports. FreeBSD has 200 people core team thousands of commiters and probably 100 times bigger user base. There are also philosophical differences. OpenBSD much like RedHat is incremental distro. You
are suppose to update port three once in 6 months.
FreeBSD is moving target like Debian. People keep upgrading and compiling until they get sick of it and then adopt incremental strategy. For all practical purposes fresh installation of FreeBSD every six months is more than enough for most users.

To show all of the cpus in dmesg doesn't count. It's lightyears behind FreeBSD, even NetBSD is more advanced. It's performance I'm talking of. But in the end they don't care about it, because security is important. And if you want anything ultra-secure, then you have to live with massive sacrifices.

Sorry it's some kind of sarcasm ;-) But speaking tacheles I wouldn't recommend it anymore. For the desktop PC-BSD is the better choice, for the desktop of average joe I would use something Linux or *cough* some Mac.